In “Consider Her Ways” by Frederick Philip Grove, there is a phrase that has trouble me for some time.
-
In “Consider Her Ways” by Frederick Philip Grove, there is a phrase that has trouble me for some time. He says “the human race-conceit of the investigator” What could this mean? I thought this might be about investigating different species (races??) of ants, but I was wrong.
It’s actually another one of his jokes: “the human race-conceit of the investigator” is Grove saying that humans do science instinctively. Birds build their nests, the human creature investigates things.
1/
-
In “Consider Her Ways” by Frederick Philip Grove, there is a phrase that has trouble me for some time. He says “the human race-conceit of the investigator” What could this mean? I thought this might be about investigating different species (races??) of ants, but I was wrong.
It’s actually another one of his jokes: “the human race-conceit of the investigator” is Grove saying that humans do science instinctively. Birds build their nests, the human creature investigates things.
1/
I'm always a little suspicious when some guy from 1947 starts tossing around the word "race" so maybe that's part of why I missed it on the first pass.
I've also looked up most of the species names that he uses for ants. They have all been revised: but some aspects of the story make even more sense now that I know the modern names of the ants he's talking about.
2/2
